


Inappropriate Attire

by Midnight_Run



Category: Tales of Crestoria
Genre: Look... all I’m saying is that that coat would absolutely stress Aegis out, M/M, Vicious' Poor Excuse for a Coat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:54:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28053486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Midnight_Run/pseuds/Midnight_Run
Summary: In which Aegis adjusts to his new circumstances and bears a terrible grudge against Vicious’ coat.
Relationships: Aegis Alver/Vicious
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Inappropriate Attire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NanakiBH](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NanakiBH/gifts).



> I played so _much_ Crestoria in the last week. I hope you enjoy this. Happy Yuletide!

Vicious' coat was a _problem_.

Not that he has any intention of telling _him_ that. He wasn't an idiot, despite Vicious’ quite obvious opinions to the contrary, and he was relatively certain that confessing that he found the bare expense of Vicious' stomach and the dark lines of the sin scrawled across it unsettling would do absolutely nothing aside from encourage Vicious to needle him about it at every available opportunity.

Perhaps, he considered during the second week of their travels together, he could simply find an opportunity to destroy it?

No, such a thing would hardly be proper.

Of course, perhaps, if Vicious were to make Misella angry enough, perhaps....

No, no, he shouldn’t wish for such things.

He would simply have to... continue to tolerate its continued existence.

How was it that an article of clothing as typically innocuous as a coat could be so... well.

His face felt hot and he pressed a gloved hand against it to cool it, closing his eyes so he couldn’t see the almost invisible trail of hair that vanished beneath the waist of his slacks.

He had seen Vicious while he was changing, when he came from the bath, and somehow even nudity wasn’t quite as... obscene as the way the coat framed the soft expanse of his belly.

Still, there was no advantage to seeing the coat destroyed. 

With his luck Vicious might well have had several tucked away somewhere.

Or possibly find a way to wear even more indecent attire.  
  
As if such a thing were possible.  
  
Though he knew quite enough about Vicious' contrary nature that he was not eager to issue him such a challenge nor give him reason to meet it.

So instead, he sat, and sharpened his glaive and he pretended he could not see his bare skin, or the way the coat, hanging loose around him, undone at the collar, as he lingered in the middle of the room watching him with a narrow-eyed gaze warm with amusement, made his innards churn and threaten revolt.

He pointedly ignored the familiar sensation.

He was not a man ruled by base urges.

After all, there was nothing honorable or knightly in taking advantage of one’s... friend? Inconvenient and temporary ally? Former enemy? Reluctant night time companion? Sharer of rooms and meals and occasional late night conversation?

Loathe as he was to linger too long on thoughts of those sparse, meandering conversations had by the light of dying fires in a dozen inns or more, he was far more reluctant to put name to what they meant, to how comfortable he had grown around him in far to short a time.

He didn’t _like_ him, of course.

Perish the thought.

The very idea that he might some day grow to genuinely like The Great Transgressor, who was every inch the man he’d imagined him to be when all he’d known of him was name and deed, was utterly absurd. However, he could at least admit, in the privacy of his own mind, far for Vicious’ knowing looks and keen senses, that he did not hate him. That he did, in fact enjoy much of the time spent in his company on the nights when Vicious had no ale to hand and was forced to turn his mind to other pursuits.

Unfortunately, this had _not_ been one of those nights.

This night Vicious had drunk deep and long into the night before he had at long last run out of coin (quite likely) or been shown the door (even more likely) and stumbled into their shared room in the early hours of morning with a sway in his step and a sneer on his lips, laughter at some no doubt bawdy jest still lingering rough in his throat as he stumbled through the door.

Vicious’ bleary eyes had practically lit up at the sight of him and Aegis had felt his stomach drop.

”Oh, did you wait up for me, sweetheart?” The Great Transgressor asked, words honey slow and sweet though the sneer that accompanied them was anything but.

”Hardly,” he had snapped in reply, nerves taunt from a night spent stewing in his own thoughts and worries. He ran the stone across the shimmering edge of his glaive, letting it scrap loud and watching with some small kernel of satisfaction as Vicious’ eyebrow twitched. “Simply preparing for the day ahead.”

”Oh yeah? Do your best sharpening at half past two? You know that don’t actually need sharpening right? Magic doesn’t grow dull and my guns never run out of ammo.”

He breathed out slowly through his nose, counting the number of cracks in the far wall. There was no reason to show his hand, to let Vicious see what concern he might have felt, or how many times he’d been tempted to march downstairs and drag him to bed by the ear. It did not matter. What mattered was he’d managed to restrain himself. He’d waited patiently and he’d been rewarded for that patience by not looking like an utter fool. He couldn’t very well let that all go to waste now.

“I find it relaxing,” he snapped, perhaps a mite bit more peevishly than necessary.

He forced his focus to return to the glaive in his hands, to the satisfying scrap of stone upon steel and pointedly ignored Vicious as the tall man collapsed back against his bed on the opposite side of the room, pulling the pillow over his face and mumbling something unintelligible into it. He bundled his arms around it as if it were a lover, fingers bunching the fabric.

The thought alone was enough to bring a flush of heat to his cheeks.

He most certainly should _not_ be thinking of Vicious, Vicious of all people, in such a context.

He released a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding and forced his focus back to the matter of sharpening. He drew the stone across the glaive’s edge once more, the ringing of steel almost painfully loud in the silence of the room.

It was... _challenging_ not to look at him, not to study him when there was little enough chance of being caught doing so. The way his long legs were draped over the side of the bed, booted feet spread wide, completely oblivious to the weight of any sidelong look he might have given him.

All the more reason he should keep his mind on his work and far, far away from the drunken, indecent, half-naked sod sprawled across that bed.

There was absolutely nothing to be gained from observing the way his coat, that awful excuse for a coat, was spread wide around him, framing his chest; showing off that utterly unnecessary expanse of sun-kissed skin and black marks. Showcasing his dark nipples, pert and strange and terrible to look upon, where they peeped out from the shadows cast by the coat’s worn edges. The way his pants rode so excessively, comically low on his hips.

Chivalrous men did not ogle their enemies, not even after they stopped being enemies. 

He was quite certain that it simply wasn’t the done thing.

He drew the whetstone across the glaive’s head once more, letting the steel sing.

"Are you fucking _kidding_ me?" Vicious snarled finally, drawing the pillow away from his head just enough to glare at him from where he lay spawled across the bed. 

Aegis raised an eyebrow, drawing the whet stone across his glaive’s blade one final time before setting it aside, letting it clatter against the tabletop and allowing the glaive to vanish, "I would, but I imagine the humor would be lost on you. Inebriated as you are.”

Vicious snorted, rough and rude, “You saying I’m too drunk to get the joke?”

“I’m saying it is past time even great and terrible Transgressors were abed,” Aegis replied, standing and setting about preparing for bed.

Not that there was much to be done in the way of preparation. He had left all his belongings back in the castle barracks and he’d been wearing the same set of clothes all day, every day since. He was quite certain that if he took his shirt off now it would stand on its own, reeking of sweat. Still, even for all the nights he’d spent sleeping rough on long patrols, he’d never mastered the knack for being able to sleeping without loosening buttons and fastenings. He had always envied Leon his ability to sleep anywhere, fully ready to leap into action at a moment’s notice. 

”Need some help there, Princess,” Vicious asked and he nearly jumped out of his skin, pulling away with a start from the feel of Vicious’ breath stirring his hair at the nape of his neck.

Had he truly been so lost in his thoughts that he’d missed Vicious crossing the room?

Or was the Great Transgressor even more sly than he gave him credit for?

Perhaps both?

”No, thank you,” he snapped, body taunt as he forced himself to continue unfastening the buttons at his collar, ignoring the sudden proximity of the infuriating man behind him. “I’m quite capable of managing on my own.”

This was clearly that wretched coat’s doing.

If not for that coat, he would not be nearly so readily flustered. Nor as distracted.

He could not possibly be the only one so affected. Truly he might be doing the world a service were he to destroy the wretched thing.

”Bet you are,” Vicious murmured, leaning in, too close, standing far too close and terribly still, like a hunter waiting for its prey to drop its guard.

The words brought heat to his cheeks and a renewed churn to his belly.

“You’ve no idea,” he replied hurriedly, face on fire and stomach doing uncomfortable flip flops as he turned his attention to unfastening his cuffs.

At that, Vicious laughed, rough and wild, and then he spun away, striding back to fall against the edge of his bed once more. 


End file.
